Picardy is short of speech therapists! The figures from the National Federation of the profession, dated spring 2022, speak for themselves. There are less than 15.5 practitioners in the Aisne, 15.9 in the Oise per 100,000 inhabitants, we are at 28.3 in the Somme. When we are at more than 36.4 in Hauts-de-France and 33 per 100,000 inhabitants at the national level. As a result, waiting times are getting longer – six months, a year or even a year and a half – and patients forced to swallow kilometers for their follow-up.
Up to a year of waiting for an appointment with the speech therapist
After his tongue cancer, Michel, a resident of Saint-Quentin, could neither speak nor eat. His wife, Évelyne, was urgently looking for a speech therapist: “We phoned almost all the speech therapists in Saint-Quentin: no one wanted to take my husband. He was placed on two waiting lists who never called back. At the time, we were a little lost, he had already struggled to accept his fourth cancer. He absolutely needed a speech therapist follow-up to be able to speak normally..”
When we can, we unfortunately try to prioritize certain requests — Lucie Brizard, speech therapist in Amiens
A practitioner from Amiens ends up taking Michel in charge, after multiple calls. After the relief, you have to organize for taxi rides, because Évelyne is working: “You must apply for an exemption from Social Security; at the beginning, he went there every fortnight, it was very tiring for him“.
In Picardy, there are six to twelve months of waiting, even up to eighteen months. All of this can have serious repercussions, explains Lucie Brizard, speech therapist and member of the National Federation of Speech Therapists: “Learly rehabilitation, especially after cerebrovascular accidents (CVA), is very important ; in the case of a stroke, the best phase to recover is six to twelve months. However, there can be quite long delays for speech therapy care; we try when we can to prioritize, unfortunately, some requests.” In children, particularly with autistic disorders, the lack of speech therapy can also have repercussions on their progress.
Increasing the number of speech-language pathology students is urgent, according to the National Federation of the profession
The National Federation of Speech Therapists is calling for more students in this sector, which is accessed by competition. This year, the numerus clausus is 937 in France, 37 at Picardie Jules-Verne University. “This means that a promotion of 37 students has just been recruited; she will be out in five yearsexplains Lucie Brizard. We note that now, recruitment is a little more local: we have the impression that there are a few more students who stay in Picardy to work. This year, we have between five and seven students staying in the region: we have a few facilities in Amiens, near Compiègne and there are also some in Aisne. We pick up one or two speech therapists in the region every year, every two years. But the situation remains complicated Nevertheless“, concludes the practitioner.